I’m officially putting an end to the “termite” scare. I don’t have termites. I have small white bugs that like damp areas. I had a leek under the shower and as a result some rotten plywood, No biggie!!! Thank GOD!

I’m out of commission for a few days. I moved back into the anchorage and like a dummie didn’t put my gloves on before letting the anchor chain run through my hands at fill speed. The chain had a section with some barnacles on it and I really sliced up my hands, OUCH! How long have I been doing this cruising thing?

My new makita sander doesn’t want to hold on to a piece of sand paper anymore. I’ve only had it 6 weeks and the Velcro on the pad is bad, real bummer but I have a three month guarantee on it, hopefully they will exchange it no questions. It’s not like home depot here. I do have to go to Panama city though.

My step mom is coming for a visit the first week of September and we are going to drive around Panama. I’ll duck out of the country for a few hours to get a fresh stamp in my passport during the trip.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Perhaps a better alternative is just to sail away from the corrupt, greedy, and power hungry? live free with holes in our pockets, smiles on our faces, and wine in our bellies, just an idea? There is too much talk of bombs in the world today.

Chuck L,
Thanks for the effort. I do feel like I have an extended family online :)

Well, this blog gets a little better.

I have two French friends here is the anchorage. They bought my friends boat about 6 months back and are brand new to cruising. I’ve loaned them some books, answered some questions and generally try and help them out. His birthday was yesterday and they invited me over for dinner & drinks. They have a little 26′ steal boat but we managed to fit 7 of us (tight) in the cockpit. My other friends that sold them the boat came over, and they invited the Spanish couple from the boat next door.

Just an hour earlier I was putting some of the penciled in waypoints from my Western Africa book into my PC.

Spanish is what was spoke at the table for the evening for the new guests, and me as my French is well…, I can understand some and ask for a glass of water or bathroom and that’s about it. The Spanish couple speak Castillion Spanish which is very differant on the ear. He is from Spain, she from the Cape Verde Islands:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Verde

About 10 minutes into the evening I heard “Gambia” and knew these were the people that placed the cruising guides at Hanz’s book swap for me. I stumbled around in my bad Spanish but got my story across and how much their books impacted my journey. They were so, so, so very pleased and gave me much information. He will come to my boat next week and go over charts with me.

“Western Africa is not an experience to live without” came from him in broken English as he tried to accentuate the importance of his words. “Not to go in the winter (wet season)” as the malaria (mosquitoes) is bad. For the wet season he suggests to sail to Cape Verde islands where the girls are friendly and the wine and bread are cheap, he met his woman there. Cape Verde is Portuguese speaking and some good schooling before crossing the Atlantic again for Brazil.

He is an interesting man. A few years back he fell off of his boat 800 miles from shore. He floated for 11 hours contemplating the end of his life when he was rescued by a fishing boat. His boat was beached in Antigua and a month later when he found it nothing was taken from her. There is a bit of luck for you, I asked him if he could bless me, we laughed.

As the evening wore on the birthday boy broke out his accordion and got into a pretty heavy jam session. The woman from Cape Verde was singing at the top of her lungs and I’m sure keeping up the neighborhood around midnight. It was a good evening

For now I focus on Splendid and I may or may not be able to cross this next season. But I can tell you the idea of crossing the Atlantic is growing quite strong in my heart these past few days. I’m working on a “must have/do” list, and a “want to have/do” list. I’ve put my SCUBA compressor up for sale as I realized I have 5 engines in my life and I need to simplify! Plus I’ll make some money on it. I just want to sail, sail, sail!!!!!

Peace

USAA Bank refunds up to $15 in other banks’ ATM usage fees each month and does not charge a fee for the first 10 ATM withdrawals. Subsequent transactions will be charged $2.00 each. A 1% foreign transaction fee applies to withdrawals outside the United States.

Just slightly better than Ally Bank. I believe family is defined as spouse and children. I couldn’t find it on the web site.

Mark,
If you ever get an extra few extra bucks from HSBC donate it to some starving kids or something, they are horrible thieves and have stolen hundreds of dollars from me, and I barely have any money.

Well I just got off the phone with ally bank and I’m going to open an account, if you hate your bank like I hate my bank, check these guys out (NO ATM FEES at any domestic (USA) ATM, and I would only have to pay the ATM fee here $3.00 plus one percent to the evil master card. Why am I paying mastercard for access to my own money? IT”S NOT CREDIT! I don’t have or want any type of credit. How can they do that? I just want a debit card with no credit card logo on it. Is there still such a thing?

http://www.ally.com/bank/interest-checking-account/

MHTinkler. I use adobe premiere pro but it has a fairly steep learning curve compared to other programs. there are plenty of easy to use programs out there, I don’t know much about them.

I’m enjoying reading my guide on Western Africa, sounds awesome and would be cool to anchor next to hippos in the Gambia :)